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Despite Threats, 9/11 Passes Quietly in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan — Every Sept. 11 anniversary comes with dire threats of reprisal — terrorist claims that circle the globe for days in advance.

But perhaps nowhere else this year were the threats as excruciatingly detailed as in Afghanistan. A mysterious e-mail circulated with a claim that the National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence agency, had put out an alert over the weekend reporting that a stunning 50 to 70 suicide bombers aboard 10 vehicles were headed for Kabul, where they were expected to attack in five of the city’s police districts.

If the squadron-size suicide bomber formation even arrived in town, nothing blew up. The United Nations nonetheless heightened its security status on Thursday to what it calls “Gray City,” meaning no movement in the city except for essential business.

Officials here were also bracing for reaction to yet another threat by the Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn Korans; past such efforts have led to riots and numerous deaths, especially in South Asia. This Sept. 11 featured similar threats from Mr. Jones, but his plans to make a bonfire of the Muslim holy book were doused when the local park authority in Polk County, Fla., turned down his request for an open fire permit.

Once again, though, the authorities in many countries took precautions. Security was beefed up at airports, police officers were put on a higher state of alert, guards at public facilities searched visitors more carefully.

At Los Angeles International Airport, some terminals were evacuated on the eve of Sept. 11 over a possible terrorism threat — the accused turned out to be a screener therefor the Transportation Security Administration, arrested just before midnight, according to The Los Angeles Times.

(As one commentator, responding to an article about the episode on the Newser Web site, put it: “T.S.A. have NEVER caught a terrorist ever. This would be the first, and then only a verbal threat of terrorism and not a genuine terrorist.”)

In Verona, Wis., the Tumbledown Trails Golf Course attracted death threats over a Sept. 11 promotion it was offering, “9 holes of golf for only $9.11.” But the course stayed open Wednesday despite the threats, with a sheriff’s deputy reportedly posted there, and management said it would donate any proceeds to the September 11 Memorial.

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No one answered the phone at the course on Wednesday. “Please accept our sincere apologies,” an answering machine message said. “We ask that you please take a moment to remember those we lost that day, which is what we are trying to do.”

The message concluded, “God bless and have a good day.”

In Kabul, officials at the National Directorate of Security shrugged off the dire warnings attributed to them. The agency’s spokesman, Shafiqullah Taheri, maintained “we did not have such threats, it is not credible.”

Then he laughed. “Whatever there could have been, hasn’t been,” he said. “It means we became successful at having nothing happen on the 11th of September, so far.”

The report attributed to the N.D.S. had been distributed by e-mail in the name of a security firm called Metis Solutions, although its vice president, Christopher Wynes, disavowed it.

It was similar, however, to many actual security reports circulated here in the past, describing the intelligence on suicide bombers with such specificity that they often listed the license plate numbers of the cars expected to be used.

Those warnings rarely, if ever, materialized, and the suicide bombings that do occur quite often in Afghanistan are nearly always surprise events.

After most of the dreaded day passed quietly in Kabul, the streets suddenly erupted in gunfire on Wednesday night, with thousands of rounds fired within a half-hour period just in the vicinity of the heavily fortified American, British and Canadian embassies — an intensity and duration rarely heard in the city in recent years.

Afghanistan’s soccer team had just beaten India’s, 2-0, in Katmandu, Nepal, winning its first trophy in international play. No casualties were reported from all the celebratory gunfire.

A version of this article appears in print on September 12, 2013, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Despite Spate of Threats, Sept. 11 Passes Quietly in Kabul. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe